Thoughts and musings of the KickIdle.com overlord.

Tilt/Shift Lenses

Tilt/shift lenses are a type of lens that allows a “normal” D/SLR to mimic special photographic techniques that are normally only found on large format cameras. (Large format cameras are those old style cameras that look like they are made of a bellows.) One of the really cool uses for these lenses is to create a feeling of miniaturization – everything looks like it’s a model on a toy train table instead of a shot of real life. The video below is a stop-motion animation made with a tilt/shift lens and gives a great demonstration of both time-lapse/stop motion filming and the possibilities of a tilt/shift lens. Enjoy!

I’ve know about them for some time – I actually learned about them because of their use in architectural photography. But there was a really cool article about an Italian photographer using them to make miniature views of famous landmarks in Italy & France. Can’t find the URL off-hand now, though.